Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn Part 21

Gildart could scarce avoid laughing as he glanced at his companion.

"Now," began Mrs Gaff, seating herself opposite Kenneth, with a hand on each knee, "I wants to know what a princ.i.p.al of ten thousand pounds comes to in the way of interest in a twel'month."

"Well, Mrs Gaff," said Kenneth, "that depends--"

"Dear me!" cried Mrs Gaff petulantly, "every mortial thing that has to do with money seeps to _depend_. Could ye not tell me somethin' about it, now, that doesn't depend?"

"Not easily," replied Kenneth with a laugh; "but I was going to say that if you get it invested at five per cent, that would give you an income of five hundred pounds a year."

"How much?" inquired Mrs Gaff in a high key, while her eyes widened with astonishment.

Kenneth repeated the sum.

"Young man, you're jokin'."

"Indeed I am not," said Kenneth earnestly, with an appealing glance at Gildart.

"True--as Johnson's Dictionary," said the middy. Mrs Gaff spent a few moments in silent and solemn reflection.

"The Independent clergyman," she said in a low meditative tone, "has only two hundred a year--so I'm told; an' the doctor at the west end has got four hundred, and he keeps a fine house an' servants; an' Sam b.a.l.l.s, the rich hosier, has got six hundred--so they say; and Mrs Gaff, the poor critter, has only got five hundred! That'll do," she continued, with a sudden burst of animation, "shake out the reefs in yer tops'ls, la.s.s, slack off yer sheets, ease the helm, an' make the most on it while the fair wind lasts."

Having thus spoken, Mrs Gaff hastily folded up in a napkin the sum just given her, and put it, along with the bank-book, into the tea-caddy, which she locked and deposited safely in the corner cupboard.

Immediately after, her visitors, much surprised at her eccentric conduct, rose and took their leave.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

MRS. GAFF BECOMES A WOMAN OF BUSINESS, AND FINDS IT AWFULLY HARD WORK.

Soon after the conversation narrated in the last chapter, the clerks in the bank of Wreck.u.moft were not a little interested by the entrance of a portly woman of comely appearance and large proportions. She was dressed in a gaudy cotton gown and an enormously large bonnet, which fluttered a good deal, owing as much to its own magnitude and instability as to the quant.i.ty of pink ribbons and bows wherewith it was adorned.

The woman led by the hand a very pretty little girl, whose dress was much the same in pattern, though smaller in proportion. Both woman and child looked about them with that air of uncertainty peculiar to females of the lower order when placed in circ.u.mstances in which they know not exactly how to act.

Taking pity upon them, a clerk left his perch, and going forward, asked the woman what she wanted.

To this she replied promptly, that she wanted money.

She was much flushed and very warm, and appeared to have come some distance on foot, as well as to be in a state of considerable agitation, which, however, she determinedly subdued by the force of a strong will.

"If you go to yonder rail and present your cheque," replied the clerk kindly, "you'll get the money."

"Present what, young man?"

"Your cheque," replied the clerk.

"What's that?"

"Have you not a cheque-book--or a slip of paper to--"

"Oh! ay, a _book_. Of course I've got a book, young man."

Saying this, Mrs Gaff, (for it was she), produced from a huge bag the bank-book that had erstwhile reposed in the mysterious tea-caddy.

"Have you no other book than this?"

"No, young man," replied Mrs Gaff, feeling, but not exhibiting, slight alarm.

The clerk, after glancing at the book, and with some curiosity at its owner, then explained that a cheque-book was desirable, although not absolutely necessary, and went and got one, and showed her the use of it,--how the sum to be drawn should be entered with the date, etcetera, on the margin in figures, and then the cheque itself drawn out in words, "_not in figures_," and signed; after which he advised Mrs Gaff to draw out a cheque on the spot for what she wanted.

"But, young man," said Mrs Gaff, who had listened to it all with an expression of imbecility on her good-looking face, "I never wrote a stroke in my life 'xcept once, when I tried to show my Billy how to do it, and only made a big blot on his copy, for which I gave him a slap on the face, poor ill-used boy."

"Well, then, tell me how much you want, and I will write it out for you," said the clerk, sitting down at a table and taking up a pen.

Mrs Gaff pondered for a few seconds, then she drew Tottie aside and carried on an earnest and animated conversation with her in hoa.r.s.e whispers, accompanied by much nodding and quivering of both bonnets, leading to the conclusion that what the one propounded the other heartily agreed to.

Returning to the table, Mrs Gaff said that she wanted a hundred pounds.

"How much?" demanded the clerk in surprise.

"A hundred pound, young man," repeated Mrs Gaff, somewhat sternly, for she had made up her mind to go through with it come what might; "if ye have as much in the shop just now--if not I'll take the half, and call back for the other half to-morry--though it be raither a longish walk fro' Cove and back for a woman o' my size."

The clerk smiled, wrote out the cheque, and bade her sign it with a cross. She did so, not only with a cross, but with two large and irregular blots. The clerk then pointed to a part.i.tion about five feet six in height, where she was to present it. Going to the part.i.tion she looked about for a door by which to enter, but found none. Looking back to the clerk for information, she perceived that he was gone.

Pickpockets and thieves instantly occurred to her, but, on searching for the bank-book and finding that it was safe, she felt relieved. Just as she was beginning to wonder whether she was not being made game of, she heard a voice above her, and, looking up, observed a man's head stretched over the top of the part.i.tion and looking down at her.

"Now, then, good woman, what do you want?" said the head.

"I wants a hundred pound," said Mrs Gaff, presenting her cheque in a somewhat defiant manner, for she began to feel badgered.

The head put over a hand, took the cheque, and then both disappeared.

Mrs Gaff stood for some time waiting anxiously for the result, and as no result followed, she began again to think of thieves and pickpockets, and even meditated as to the propriety of setting up a sudden cry of thieves, murder, and fire, in order to make sure of the clerk being arrested before he should get quite clear of the building, when she became aware of a fluttering of some sort just above her. Looking up she observed her cheque quivering on the top of the part.i.tion.

Wondering what this could mean, she gazed at it with an expression of solemn interest.

Twice the cheque fluttered, with increasing violence each time, as though it were impatient, and then the head re-appeared suddenly.

"Why don't you take your cheque?" it demanded with some asperity.

"Because I don't want it, young man; I wants my money," retorted Mrs Gaff, whose ire was beginning to rise.

The head smiled, dropped the cheque on the floor, and, pointing with its nose to a gentleman who stood behind a long counter in a sort of stall surrounded with bra.s.s rails, told her to present it to the teller, and she'd get the money. Having said which the head disappeared; but it might have been noted by a self-possessed observer, that as soon as Mrs Gaff had picked up the cheque, (bursting two b.u.t.tons off her gown in the act), the head re-appeared, grinning in company with several other heads, all of which grinned and watched the further movements of Mrs Gaff with interest.

There were four gentlemen standing behind the long counter in brazen stalls. Three of these Mrs Gaff pa.s.sed on her way to the one to whom she had been directed by the head's nose.

"Now, sir," said Mrs Gaff, (she could not say "young man" this time, for the teller was an elderly gentleman), "I hope ye'll pay me the money without any more worrittin' of me. I'm sure ye might ha' done it at once without shovin' about a poor ignorant woman like me."

Having appealed to the teller's feelings in this last observation, Mrs Gaff's own feelings were slightly affected, and she whimpered a little.

Tottie, being violently sympathetic, at once began to weep silently.